It is known to make shaped ceramic abrasive particles. For example, one method includes sequentially: filling cavities on the surface of a microreplicated tool with a boehmite sol-gel, drying the sol-gel to form shaped boehmite particles within the cavities of the tool, removing the shaped boehmite particles from the cavities of the tool, and then sintering the shaped boehmite particles to form alpha-alumina shaped abrasive particles. While this method is conceptually simple, it is typically quite expensive to make the tool. Moreover, a different tool is desired to make a new desired shape of ceramic shaped abrasive particle.
Other methods of making shaped ceramic abrasive particles include a screen printing technique wherein a sol-gel ceramic precursor material is screen printed on a substrate, dried to form ceramic shaped abrasive precursor particles, removed from the substrate, and sintered to form the shaped ceramic abrasive particles. While somewhat less expensive, and typically with lower resolution than methods using a microreplicated tool, this technique still requires the preparation of a separate screen for each desired shape of the shaped ceramic abrasive particles.